Mackie and the Problem of Evil
1. Rhetoric: The study of the effective use of language
2. Cupidity: Inordinate desire
3. Good Will: A will by which we desire to live upright and honorable lives to attain the highest wisdom
4. “There is no single cause of evil; rather, everyone who does evil is the cause of his own evildoing”
5. “A mind that is in control (one that possesses virtue) cannot be made a slave to inordinate desire by anything equal or superior to it, because such a thing would be just, or by anything inferior to it because such a thing would be too weak. Just one possibility remains: Only its own will and free choice can make the mind a companion of cupidity”
6. Fallacious: Erroneous
7. Naturalistic Fallacy: The alleged mistake of identifying ethical goodness with a “natural” cause
8. Logical Solution to the Problem of Evil: either God has limited power and cannot prevent evil, God has limited goodness and doesn’t want to prevent evil, or evil doesn’t exist –> requires one to abandon the traditional concept of God as all-good and all-powerful or maintain the highly unrealistic view that there really is no evil
9. Fallacious Solution to the Problem of Evil: claims that all three initial propositions are true, but in the process of explaining how they are compatible the theories end up rejecting one or more of them
10. “The problem of evil…is a problem only for someone who believes that there is a God who is both omnipotent and wholly good”
11. “…good is opposed to evil, in such a way that a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can, and…there are no limits to what an omnipotent thing can do. From these it follows that a good omnipotent thing eliminates evil completely, and then the propositions that a good omnipotent thing exists, and that evil exists, are incompatible.”
12. Theodicy: An attempt to justify God’s goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil
13. “the existence of evil is necessary if human beings, at the present state of their growth
2. Cupidity: Inordinate desire
3. Good Will: A will by which we desire to live upright and honorable lives to attain the highest wisdom
4. “There is no single cause of evil; rather, everyone who does evil is the cause of his own evildoing”
5. “A mind that is in control (one that possesses virtue) cannot be made a slave to inordinate desire by anything equal or superior to it, because such a thing would be just, or by anything inferior to it because such a thing would be too weak. Just one possibility remains: Only its own will and free choice can make the mind a companion of cupidity”
6. Fallacious: Erroneous
7. Naturalistic Fallacy: The alleged mistake of identifying ethical goodness with a “natural” cause
8. Logical Solution to the Problem of Evil: either God has limited power and cannot prevent evil, God has limited goodness and doesn’t want to prevent evil, or evil doesn’t exist –> requires one to abandon the traditional concept of God as all-good and all-powerful or maintain the highly unrealistic view that there really is no evil
9. Fallacious Solution to the Problem of Evil: claims that all three initial propositions are true, but in the process of explaining how they are compatible the theories end up rejecting one or more of them
10. “The problem of evil…is a problem only for someone who believes that there is a God who is both omnipotent and wholly good”
11. “…good is opposed to evil, in such a way that a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can, and…there are no limits to what an omnipotent thing can do. From these it follows that a good omnipotent thing eliminates evil completely, and then the propositions that a good omnipotent thing exists, and that evil exists, are incompatible.”
12. Theodicy: An attempt to justify God’s goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil
13. “the existence of evil is necessary if human beings, at the present state of their growth